A ray of sunshine #GivingTuesday#India
A photograph can sometimes take you on a journey through time.
I came across a picture of Kiran recently and found myself smiling.
There she was, standing among the children at our Yamuna centre, having just completed her Class XII examinations and already volunteering her time to teach them English.
The girl in the picture was no ordinary volunteer.
She was Kiran.
Our Kiran.
Kiran was born in the same month that Project Why was born.
And, as if that were not special enough, she was born on my mother’s birthday.
That gave her a very special right.
She has always called me Anu.
And she does so with such confidence that no one has ever dared to question it.
I first held Kiran in my arms when she was just a few days old.
A year or so later, Utpal came into our lives.
And somehow, the three of us became inseparable.
Looking at that photograph, I realised that Kiran had grown up alongside Project Why.
In fact, in many ways, they had grown up together.
Kiran was always a serious and quiet child.
She seemed much older than her years and had a way of surprising you with her mature, almost adult manner.
But there was also a mischievous and wonderfully individual side to her.
While other children were drinking ordinary soft drinks, Kiran’s preferred drink was ginger ale.
She was clearly born to be different.
In those early years, I would tuck Kiran under one arm and Utpal under the other, and the three of us would set off on our various expeditions.
They attended the same playschool, and every afternoon it was my responsibility to collect them.
But we did not always go straight home.
In those days, momos were still something of a rarity, and whenever we passed the momo shop, the three of us would stop and gorge ourselves before continuing on our way.
There was also the time we were walking to Project Why and passed a huge pile of food thrown onto the ground after a wedding.
Kiran was upset.
She looked at the wasted food, looked up at me and said:
“They could have fed it to the cows!”
That was Kiran.
Quiet.
Serious.
Thoughtful.
And already, in her own little way, noticing the world around her.
When it was time to admit her to school, we went through the admission nightmare together.
I experienced, first-hand, what millions of parents go through every year.
And Kiran, of course, survived it all.
Her favourite place at Project Why, however, was always the special-needs section.
From a very young age, she was drawn to these children.
They became her friends.
And every summer, while other children were worrying about holiday homework, Kiran would come and spend her holidays volunteering in the special-needs class.
That connection stayed with her.
Perhaps, in some way, it was already preparing her for the journey she would eventually make.
When Utpal left for boarding school at the age of four, Kiran was heartbroken.
She had lost her little soul mate.
She missed him terribly and made it a point to attend every Parent-Teacher Meeting at his school.
I am not sure what she understood of the proceedings, but I do know that she was delighted simply to be there with him.
So, when the time came for Kiran to leave school after completing Class X, we decided to send her to the same boarding school.
She was over the moon.
And for the next two years, the two friends were together again.
By then, of course, they were no longer the two little children I had once carried on my hips.
They were growing up.
Kiran was becoming a young woman, and Utpal was becoming a young man.
But something remained unchanged.
They were still part of the same little family that had begun all those years ago.
And Project Why remained the thread that ran through all our lives.
After completing Class XII, Kiran began pursuing her college education through correspondence.
Like most young people, she was beginning to think about her future and what she wanted to do with her life.
But then she made a decision that surprised me—and yet, in retrospect, perhaps should not have surprised me at all.
Kiran decided to come back to Project Why.
She began by working with our special-needs children.
It seemed somehow fitting.
These were the children she had loved and spent time with since she was a little girl.
The child who had once come to the centre during her summer holidays was now returning as a young woman ready to work.
Then she became an English teacher.
And slowly, as the years passed, her role grew.
Today, Kiran is the centre manager of the very centre where she once volunteered.
Sometimes life comes full circle in the most beautiful way.
The little girl who once walked into Project Why as a child is now one of the people helping to run it.
She has gone from being a child in the Project, to volunteering in the Project, to teaching
in the Project..
And now she helps lead it.
Kiran has always been a bright child.
Not just because she is intelligent, though she certainly is.
There is something else about her.
A quiet strength.
A deep sense of responsibility.
And a kindness that has always seemed to come naturally to her.
I have watched her grow from the serious little girl who worried about wasted food, drank ginger ale and loved the special-needs children, into a young woman who has chosen to make those children part of her life’s work.
She could have gone anywhere.
She could have chosen any path.
Instead, she chose to come back to the place that had been part of her life since she was born.
Project Why and Kiran have grown up together.
She was born in the same month that Project Why began.
And today, she is helping to carry it forward.
That is something that makes me incredibly proud.
Kiran will always be my little girl.
She will always be the child I carried on my hip, the little friend who missed Utpal terribly, and the only person who calls me Anu with such absolute confidence.
But she is also so much more.
She is a teacher.
A mentor.
A colleague.
A centre manager.
And, in her own quiet way, one of the people who make Project Why what it is.
She is our Kiran.
Our little ray of sunshine.
And I know that wherever life takes her, she will find her place in the sun.
She was born a few weeks before Project Why saw the light of day and has been our ray of sunshine all the way along. Kiran is undoubtedly an intrinsic part of Project Why. She turned 18 yesterday. What a journey it has been.
I remember carrying her in my arms as I set upon crafting my dream. Somehow, in early days she was always by my side, joined a year later by Utpal who would become her lifelong friend.
Today she is in class XII, a lovely young woman at the threshold of fulfilling her destiny.
Looking at her takes me down memory lane as her life mirrors Project Why’s journey. Like her we too find ourselves at the threshold of a new chapter as we take our first but determined steps towards sustainability.
We have come a long way since early times when we were both in our infancy and when everything seemed possible. Step by step and day by day we grew and gave wings to our dreams. We faltered at times but always picked ourselves up, dusted our bruised selves and carried on with grit and determination.
Today I look back and share some of the moments we lived to together. How can I forget the day I was introduced to the word jometry, the moniker used by many children in slums for the ubiquitous pencil box; or the day when we both fell upon mounds of thrown food after some religious feeding frenzy and the little wise 6 year old quipped: why don’t they give it to cows! How can I forget the anxious times when we were seeking admission and the nightmare we had to go through at the hands of wily predators looking for a quick buck. How can I forget the days this little girl spent ‘volunteering’ with her friends in the our special section or the cake we baked as part of her holiday homework as her home did not have an oven! Holiday homework was a hardship we shared year after year.
Kiran is without doubt our little ray of sunshine!
Happy birthday girl! May all your dreams come true.
